The next step was to enable an airship to obtain fuel from a tanker or other ship without physical contact or advance arrangements—even from a passing merchantman. The pilot asks by radio or voice whether the surface ship can spare some gasoline, and on an affirmative answer, lowers or drops on his deck two rubberized fabric spheres connected to each other by 14 feet of rope—also a note of instructions. The smaller sphere is an ordinary air-filled buoy, the larger, about three feet in diameter when filled, is the fuel bag. The surface ship fills the fuel bag, then drops both bags overboard, being careful only that they do not get tangled up. Then the airship flies over the two bags, drops a hook between them, hauls away, pumps the gasoline into its tanks. The third device permits an airship to anchor in the open sea near a surface ship to transfer crews or take on fuel and supplies. The anchor is a cone-shaped rubberized fabric bag, ten feet long, with a diameter of 2½ feet at the top. It is lowered 50 feet below the airship by two cables connected with each other by rungs to form a ladder. Half of the cables’ length is made up of heavy exerciser cord to dampen the effect of wave movements. On top the cone is a wire mesh cover which allows the water to pass through, and is strong enough to act as a platform, supporting a man. As the cone fills up the airship drops ballast till its “mooring mast” is half submerged. The principle of the drag rope comes into play—if the airship starts to rise it finds itself lifting an increasingly heavier load, counteracting the rising tendency. If it starts to settle down toward the water, the load is correspondingly lessened and the ship grows lighter. The result is that the airship is held highly stable, even in a rough sea. The surface ship then sends a small boat alongside and dispatches the relief crew members or supplies, them up and down the ladder, or uses a winch, the platform atop the anchor serving as the operating base. This system also permits the moving of a sick passenger ashore, or the rescue of a man overboard. When the airship is ready to leave its anchorage, the cone is tipped by a line attached to the bottom, spilling the water, and hauled aboard. The servicing ship need carry no special equipment. The weight of cone and ladder is negligible. By being able to pick up ballast and borrow fuel from a passing ship, (neither airship nor surface ship need slow down for the fuel exchange if going in the same direction) the airship greatly increases its radius of operations.